Black Monday

[blackcap]

For those of you interested in chances and implication on the market... (give or take a few rounding errors)

Chance of Republicans holding both house and senate is 30%
Chance of Democrats winning both house and senate is 11%
Chance of Republican Senate and Democrat house is 53%
Chance of Democrat Senate and Republican House is 6%

betfair.com

[Miway]

For those of you interested in chances and implication on the market... (give or take a few rounding errors)

Chance of Republicans holding both house and senate is 30%
Chance of Democrats winning both house and senate is 11%
Chance of Republican Senate and Democrat house is 53%
Chance of Democrat Senate and Republican House is 6%

betfair.com

Take those figures with a grain of salt if
last election odds anything to go by.

[blackcap]

Take those figures with a grain of salt if
last election odds anything to go by.

It's just what the market is saying. The real market, like the $ one. Last election the market still gave Trump a 1 in 6 chance to win, the MSM gave him a 1 in 20 chance to win. The market was closer. The market is where real $ are being bet and has no partisan lean either way. I would rather trust the market than the polls and or the media.
That said the market is often wrong, it got Brexit spectacularly wrong, and that is in part I guess the market is in some way driven by the polls and the media as well. Off course taking those figures with a grain of salt, but it shows all 4 options are very possible. SA had a 1 in 14 chance of beating NZ in the last test and that came in. The market got that very wrong too.

[moka]

Interesting chart showing margin debt diverging from S&P 500 in October.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/31/mark...=margin%20debt

“A technical signal bubbling underneath the roiled market's surface could portend more pain for stocks, BofAML's Stephen Suttmeier says. Contracting margin debt coinciding with a market peak suggests rising risk-off sentiment.
A similar setup was seen before the most significant market crashes of this century”.

[bull....]

mid terms were a non event. see we are hitting the 61.8% retracement level from the most recent low in this rally now

[mondograss]

Maybe, but the outcome was what was expected which business tends to find encouraging. There will be more in the way of checks on Trumps more irrational decisions, but not total paralysis.

[bull....]

this is a worry

the market rebound in november is to a large extent due only to company buy backs

The bull market's biggest buyer is back — companies are buying back stock at a record pace this month

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/08/the-...his-month.html

suggests the markets on quick sand when the buy backs finish

[Aaron]

If interest rates stay low buybacks could carry on for a long time. I have heard buy-backs improve earnings per share and help CEO performance bonuses but I don't see why a company buys out its owners. If it has excess cash just pay a dividend. I suppose if things turn sour in the financial world there will be a lot of shares re-issued to recapitalise like in the GFC. Do you think company buybacks make sense to anyone other than company management?

[blackcap]

If interest rates stay low buybacks could carry on for a long time. I have heard buy-backs improve earnings per share and help CEO performance bonuses but I don't see why a company buys out its owners. If it has excess cash just pay a dividend. I suppose if things turn sour in the financial world there will be a lot of shares re-issued to recapitalise like in the GFC. Do you think company buybacks make sense to anyone other than company management?

Buybacks make a lot of sense in certain circumstances. I am not sure if you are talking from a NZ or global perspective. But in NZ, if I hold shares in a company that has no imputation credits to impart, but has plenty of cash, I do not want them paying me a dividend. This would be destroying shareholder wealth. I would rather they complete a buy back. Hope that makes sense.

[winner69]

buybacks v corporate debt

Just makes equities scarcer ....usually good